


The Lady's Hand

by miniwhoasked



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Empire of the Hand (Star Wars), Fluff, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Imperial Officers (Star Wars), Post-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, does this count as fluff?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:28:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29149731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miniwhoasked/pseuds/miniwhoasked
Summary: Admiral Piett lived.
Relationships: Ezra Bridger/Sabine Wren
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	The Lady's Hand

Csilla. The ice blob visible from the shuttle’s viewport.

Admiral Firmus Piett strolled forward from the rear hold of the shuttle exuding fake confidence. He didn’t even know how he escaped the  _ Executor _ . For some reason, there was a shuttle of indiscernible design piloted by an orange-topped C1 unit that scooped him up when he floated through the vacuum of space.

The droid had blatted at him incessantly once they had jumped to lightspeed. 

_ <<Charge-Piett,>> the droid had said, <<Frenemy-Thrawn wants you alive.>> _

_ “Thrawn?” Piett had asked, “Grand Admiral Thrawn?” _

_ <<Yes!!>> the droid answered, <<Frenemy-Thrawn wants you to be an officer in Friend-Eli-Hand-Navy.>> _

_ “Huh.” _

+++

As the shuttle lowered itself down onto the cave’s landing pad, seemingly pre-cleared to land by the C1 unit, Piett stepped into the main hold and tried to straighten out his bloodied Admiral’s uniform. As the ramp lowered and he strolled down, he was hit with a wave of heat from the artificial heaters that kept away Csilla’s bitter cold.

Piett took in the scene before him, ice-laden walls and all. He scanned the cave and saw a small party awaiting him. The C1 unit raced past to go meet them, and the black-haired young man patted its dome.

“Heey, Chop!” the man said, “What’s up?”

<<I have brought Master-Ani-Admiral-Man.>>

“Excellent work, C1-10P,” the blue-skinned man congratulated calmly.

Piett noted the squad of death troopers flanking the four people who were obviously there to greet him. He took stock of the four a second time.

There was a black-haired man dressed in a military-style jacket standing about 167 centimetres. There was a Mando-- not too common anymore--clad in striking magenta-hued beskar who was a few centimetres taller than the black-haired man. There was a brown-haired man about the same size as the black-haired one, but clad in a proper military uniform. Lastly, there was a blue-skinned man with striking red eyes who was dressed in the uniform of an Imperial Grand Admiral.

“Admiral Piett,” the blue-skinned man yelled out, “Welcome to the Empire of the Hand.”

+++

Their little entourage made their way through the winding caves and underground tunnels of Csaplar on their way to the aptly named Citadel. The black-haired man had introduced himself as Ezra Bridger, and the Mando had called herself Sabine Wren. The Admiral had said his name was Eli’van’to, which was a name that Piett almost recognized.  _Elivanto, El Ivanto, Eliv Anto, where have I heard that name before?_ Piett mused as they walked.

“Eli Vanto!” he suddenly exclaimed, “Commander Eli Vanto of the 7th Fleet.”

“In the flesh,” Eli calmly retorted, “but it’s Admiral Vanto now.”

“Of course.” Piett quickly corrected himself sheepishly. “And you’re some of the Rebels from Lothal, right?” he asked the other two humans walking hand in hand.

“Yes,” Wren answered pointedly. 

“We got to meet Vader before you,” Bridger snarkily added, earning a quiet huff of laughter from both Thrawn and Piett.

As they kept walking, they all exchanged various pleasantries. Thrawn and Piett traded anecdotes from the Officers’ Academy, Wren told the story of lifting that up-and-coming pilot Antilles from Skystrike Academy, and Vanto hyped up Chiss cooking. 

“You know,” Bridger pointed out, “I heard from Hera that Wedge fired the shot that destroyed the Second Death Star.” Bridger paused for a second before continuing, “Or, well, him and Lando anyway.”

“I still can’t believe they built two of those,” Thrawn remarked dryly.

“Credit where credit is due,” Wren added in a teasing tone, “those TIE Defenders were really, really hard to steal.”

“Yeah,” Bridger confirmed flirtatiously, “but at least he put us in a cockpit together for an extended amount of time.”

“Shut it.” Wren clamped a hand over Bridger’s mouth to shut him up. Vanto started laughing cheerily at the banter and Piett cracked a smile.

+++

“If I remember my pre-Yavin history,” Piett randomly remarked, “You dealt with the Lothal rebellion with extreme prejudice, did you not, Grand Admiral?”

“I did,” Thrawn readily admitted with just a hint of regret in his voice.

“So,” Piett countered, “why are there two known members of said rebellion now helping you?”

“Ah.” Thrawn cracked his knuckles before returning them to behind his back. “Well, you see, I told them the full truth.”

“He told them about how I got…” Vanto helpfully started.

“...Held hostage and tortured by Vice Admiral Sloane,” Wren finished, her expression unreadable beneath her helmet.

“Yeah.” Vanto shifted uncomfortably as they kept walking. 

“Also,” Piett continued on his quest for information, “correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you fail at quashing the Lothal Rebellion?”

“I did.”

“Then why did the Emperor not demote you?” Piett continued questioning as they approached their destination. 

“Because I was meant to fail, you see,” Thrawn readily admitted, albeit very calmly. “Some of my best officers--Commodore Faro, Commander Vanto, and Captain Fel--were stripped from my command and replaced with inferior versions.”

“Like Admiral Konstantine,” Bridger added with a snicker from both him and Vanto.

“The Emperor most certainly would’ve noticed, no?” Piett inquired incredulously as the party stepped into the heated interior of what must’ve been a military FOB. 

“He most certainly did,” Thrawn answered cooly, “In fact, he was even aware of Vice Admiral Sloane’s personal vendetta against me.” He paused briefly, as if organizing his thoughts. “It’s simply that he wanted to have Vice Admiral Sloane take over the Empire should anything go wrong with him or Skywalker.”

“Skywalker?”

“You served with Vader for years and never learned his real name?” Thrawn questioned serenely.

“No.”

“Regardless,” Thrawn continued, “the Emperor specifically told me not to jam frequency zero, which was how the purrgil were able to take the Seventh Fleet out here.”

“Our working theory is that the Emperor foresaw the events that happened, and elected to have Thrawn here become the vanguard that would prevent the remnants of the Empire from being able to flee like little tooka cats.”

“Last I heard of Vice Admiral Sloane, Admiral Versio was complaining, while being a wee bit drunk, mind you, that she was obsessed with renaming the Empire the First Order, and that she had cooked up an idea with the guy named Rax that they should turn an entire planet into a new Death Star,” Piett noted.

Thrawn laughed a fair bit at that anecdote, which was unusual. His Death Trooper bodyguards took up position surrounding the doorway they were stopped next to, and the rest of their little party stepped inside. 

Piett took stock of the room in front of him. It was heated and covered in utilitarian materials, but it strangely reminded him of the holovids he’d seen of the Rebels’ Echo Base on Hoth.

He noted the Imperially-dressed officers wearing nameplates, covered in names he couldn’t decipher. He managed to read one.  _ Kar’yn’faro. Must be a Chiss name. _

He noticed one ex-Imperial officer in particular.

“Max?” he called out to the man tentatively.

“Firmus?” the man answered as he looked up from the holotable, “How you been?”

Piett got pulled into a firm handshake and he answered:

“Been better, if I’m being honest. I’m still processing how I ended up with  _ the  _ Grand Admiral Thrawn on an ice planet in the Unknown Regions.”

“As Lord Vader would say…” Veers started.

“...It is proceeding as the Force wills,” Piett finished.

“Exactly.”

Piett took a second to reminisce as he stepped back to further inspect the command centre. He liked it here, he decided. Here he wasn’t Admiral Piett, Lord Vader’s second-in-command. Here he was Admiral Firmus Piett, his own man. Here he took the company of Chiss Death Troopers, a hotshot Mandalorian with a penchant for colourful explosions, and a Jedi with unnatural abilities of precognition. 

He liked it here. Here on Csilla. Here in the Empire of the Hand.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> So I literally cooked this up when I was musing about how I could rewrite the ST to fit Thrawn in, while also making him more of a likable character. I really like the backstories of people like Jagged Fel and the original Solo Twins, so I want to fit them in some how. I kinda wanna post a bunch of oneshots before I try my hand at a proper ST rewrite.
> 
> Cause I fucking HATE exposition when I need to wade through an eternity of it to set up my AU. Oneshots are so convenient lmao.  
> Insurance Broker was so succinct with the exposition lmao  
> See you soon :)


End file.
